Official: Cabinet: War Policy Committee: correspondence and papers.

Reference code: CHAR 21/61

Date: Aug 1915 - Oct 1915

Scope/content:

Correspondents include: Sir Reginald Brade [Secretary, War Office] on machine gun wastage; [Lord] Curzon [of Kedleston, Lord Privy Seal]; [3rd Lord] Selborne [earlier Lord Wolmer] on population calculations and compulsory military service (2); Major General Charles Callwell [Director of Military Operations at the War Office](4); Austen Chamberlain [Secretary of State for India]; Herbert Asquith [later Lord Oxford and Asquith, Prime Minister]; Robert Borden [Prime Minister of Canada] on the sacrifice of Canadians in World War I due to the lack of equipment; and [Thomas] Macnamara [Financial Secretary to the Admiralty] on naval expenditure.

Also includes notes on various subjects including: conscription; the evidence of [Reginald] McKenna [Chancellor of the Exchequer] and [Walter] Runciman [President of the Board of Trade] regarding calculations of numbers of men suitable for military service; figures of recruits into the army and reports on the overall condition of the army; census information and calculations regarding the population; figures for the military forces of Germany, Great Britain, Austria, Italy and Russia; comparative figures for the belligerent forces; minutes of a meeting regarding the production of rifles; financial difficulties of accepting new recruits; and the supply of heavy guns to the army.